Many of us who work from home and work but don’t have a VPN have to deal with moving files back and forth. For me the only thing I could do was transport files back and forth with a USB drive. So I did some searching and found the web app FolderShare.

First off, I don’t have to pay anything. That’s an important feature. After a short setup from both work and home I can go to my secure page at FolderShare.com and access my files. There is a mirror function but I don’t use it. I just do everything manually so I’m not sure how well that feature works. I’ve moved some 2+ meg files through here as well with no problems. The only problem I can think of is that sometimes my requested file won’t download. But if I click it a few times it eventually works.

FolderShare started out as a private company and was bought by Microsoft. MS plans to wrap it into Live.com services. One thing that I noticed however, and this is sort of comical, is that the files are PHPs. I’m sure that’s a legacy thing held over from the company who started this project. And I’m sure that MS is working hard to convert all this to .Net code before it’s out of beta. Then again, maybe not.

Here’s another review of FolderShare from PCmag.com.

Here’s a list of the Extensions I use:

All-in-One Gestures
This extension allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures, rocker navigation, scroll wheel navigation and page scrolling.

Answers
Alt+click on any word or term for quick info (Definitions, up-to-the-minute reference, and more). No selection necessary

Better Gmail
A compilation of the best Greasemonkey Gmail enhancements in one extension.

ColorZilla
Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies

Copy Plain Text
Copies text without formatting

CountdownClock
Displayes a clock that counts down to a target date.

CustomizeGoogle
Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam.

CuteMenus - Crystal SVG
Adds icons to all menus.

Flash Switcher
Switch between various Flash plugins or remove current plugin

Forecastfox
Get international weather forecasts and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable extension.

FoxClocks
Displays local times around the world in the statusbar/toolbar.

Get directions from Google Maps
Select addresses on a web page, right click the mouse, and choose “Locate on Google Map” menu item, to see the location at Google Maps and find the directions.

Gmail Notifier
A notifier for Gmail accounts.

Gmail Skins
Skins and other extra features for Gmail.

Google Calendar Notifier
This extension provides robust notifications and display of your Google Calendars for today, as well as showing any upcoming all day events for tomorrow.

Google Notebook
Allows notetaking while browsing.

Google Toolbar for Firefox
Take the power of Google with you anywhere on the Web!

Html Validator
Adds HTML validation to the View Page Source of the browser. The validation is done by Tidy from W3C.

IE View Lite
Cut down version of IE View.

MeasureIt
Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.

MR Tech Local Install
Local Install power tools for all users.

PermaTabs
Create permanent tabs that don’t close, and stick around between sessions.

QuickJava
Allaws quick enable and disable of Java and Javascript from statusbar.

TargetAlert
Provides visual cues for the destinations of hyperlinks.

Toolbar Buttons
Adds toolbar buttons

ViewSourceWith
View page source with external application

Web Developer
Adds a menu and toolbar with various web developer tools.

Got a little off topic and started watching funny dinosaur videos at youTube.

The guys at MIT always come up with cool stuff. I’m wondering what it would take to do this in Flash. Probably the hardest thing would be recognizing the shapes. The actual physics part is rather straight forward.

You’ve probably already seen Johnny Lee ( Mr. 3D ) on youTube here, here, here, here, … you get the point.

Now you can see him presenting at TED.com.

Here’s a fun list of funny and creative adverts.

This shot of volcanic lightning looks like a shot right out of a science fiction horror film but it’s a natural phenomenon. The story here gets the science a bit wrong. The process that creates the lightning is not from ionizing the atmosphere. It’s more likely to do with static buildup created from the ash particles brushing past each other in the turbulence.

Not many keyboards sell for over a grand. Then again, no other keyboard uses LEDs to create icons for each key on the keyboard either.

I love my current keyboard but there is one problem. I use a Dvorak keyboard layout so all the keys are mislabeled from my POV - except the a and m which are the same in both layouts. So, if this LED keyboard were to be reshaped as the Microsoft Natural keyboards are and the price came down in the, $300-$400 range then I’d seriously consider getting one.

Read the engadget.com review.

The eternal question: How many monitors does it take to make a geek happy? We’ll, in my case one more than I had before. Now I’m up to a three monitor system and . . . oh my gods is it sweet. Now I have a 4.824 Mega Pixels display.

The reason the colors look a little different is that I adjusted the background individually to try to balance out the different profiles on the monitors. It’s not perfect but pretty close.

The monitors themselves aren’t anything jaw dropping. I have two Dells and a Samsung. The two Dells both have a display of 1680×1050 pixels. But they are different physical sizes. The center display is a 22″ wide screen and the right display is a 20.1″ wide screen. The Samsung is a 19″ SynchMaster 940mw with a 1440×900 display.

Since I don’t play games on my PC - I have a Xbox 360 for that - I don’t really need snazzy monitors. I do a bit of graphics work but mostly I’m just coding. Boy is it nice having lots of room for panels and code and still have room for Winamp and other accessories that don’t have to be covered up all the time. And there are a number of times that I’m using all three monitors. I’ll have my Eclipse code/design on the center panel, output, help, etc. panels on the right and some XML document on the left. Now I don’t have to Alt-Tab back and forth so much.

And of course you can see that I put in a bit of effort to get a spanning desktop background. What I did was use an Active Desktop and put an HTML file on each screen that is going full screen. The background of each HTML file is a portion of the background. It works great and as I develop some Flex widgets I have in mind I can drop them into the existing HTML and let them ride over the background and under my apps.

I also had to get a second video card to get three monitor outputs. My Dell XPS came with the ATI Radeon X1300 Pro which is great. I just went to Frys electronics down the street and got the cheapest PCI Express card they had to give me the third output. Plugged it in, installed the drivers and it works like a charm. Which is good because I really didn’t feel like screwing around with troubleshooting dual video card conflicts. It’s really nice when things work the way they’re supposed to.

Power to the pixel!